The Practice of Waking Up to God: Vision Text: Genesis 28: 10-22

Transcription

1 The Practice of Waking Up to God: Vision Text: Genesis 28: I woke up one day this week watching in horror and listening intently how political, religious and social activists across the United States and many parts of the world raised their voices in protest against Trump and his government, when heartrending news coverage of crying children -- some of whom were kept in cage-like detention centers were out in the open. I swear I could not believe what I ve heard and seen especially in this day and age. CNN reported that about 2,300 children were being separated from their families at the border since Trump rose to power. A ninth-grader in McAllen, Texas, was taken from his mother. He was riding in a car with friends last spring when the car was pulled over. The teenager, brought illegally to the country by his mother as a baby, was unable to show identification. Police called immigration officials, who arrested the boy and sent him to a shelter for unaccompanied migrant children. Without the protesters and pressure from political, religious and social leaders, I believe, Trump will not budge. Finally, he succumbed to the protesters demand and on Wednesday this week, he reversed his argument that he had no authority to stop separations of undocumented immigrant families at the border, therefore signing an executive order to keep parents and children together. And I said to myself. God is still alive and present. God speaks through the voices of those who will not keep silent when the powers of love and justice and compassion is trampled by the powers of hate, bigotry and indifference. Stories like these awaken me and think of where God is in the world and then bring me to a vision of hope. Many of us still believe that God is found only in so-called holy places and sacred things and godly people in the Bible, in the four corners of the church building, in the things we do and say when we come together as a faith community. We hang or post or even wear a cross or a fish symbol or a Christian slogan, whether it be a bumper sticker, a t-shirt, a song, a mug, a sign. But one of the things that Barbara Brown Taylor believes has been saving her is waking up to the reality that anywhere can be a place where God may be encountered that everywhere is the house of God. When we allow ourselves to experience God s presence only in those places that we have labeled as godly, then we greatly limit our experience of God.

2 Today we enter into the Practice of Waking up to God through the story of Jacob the episode after he tricked his father Isaac and twin brother Esau of his birth right. We know for a fact, according to the story, that these twins wrestled in their mother Rebekah s womb throughout her pregnancy, and Esau was born with Jacob hanging on to the heel of his foot. This rivalry between the brothers continued throughout their lives, and it was exacerbated by the fact that their parents each had a favorite son. As Father Isaac was nearing death he wanted to bestow his blessing upon his oldest son, Esau, as was the custom. Mother Rebekah conspired with Jacob and they tricked Isaac into bestowing that blessing upon Jacob. When Esau realized what had happened he was out for blood. When we catch up with Jacob this morning, he is on the run from his enraged and heartbroken brother Esau, who is out for revenge. Jacob was running away. Running away from home running away from the comforts of a good home running away from his roots and place of safety and sanctuary he was running because of the sins he committed against his father and his brother. Most of us, I suspect, know what it is like to live life on the run. Some of us are running from our past, trying to escape guilt, pain, failures, disappointments. Some are trying to get away from the losses and brokenness of life. Sometimes we just want to leave behind the parts of our lives or ourselves we dislike. Other times we are running toward the future. Life on the run is a search for something or someone new; a job, a relationship, an adventure. Maybe it is the search for answers. Who am I? What is this life all about? What s my purpose? Others, driven by a mid-life crisis, chase after meaning and youth. Most of us know what it is like to live life on the run due to schedules, chaos, and the busyness of life. Life is measured by accomplishments and to do lists. Demands and expectations chase us. Alone and afraid, Jacob flees to Haran. But he has to pass through the wilderness to get there. He isn t particularly looking for God. He certainly doesn t expect God to show up. And still as the Genesis storyteller declares, Jacob encountered God. Not in a face-to-face encounter, not in an earthquake or thunderstorm, not through music or another human being, but through a vision. In a dream. After running all day, Jacob was exhausted. He decides to go to sleep and finds a stone to use as a pillow. A vivid dream unfolds: a ladder stretching to heaven with the Angels of God ascending and descending. This is the story where the familiar repetitive hymn we learned in Sunday School comes from We are climbing Jacob s Ladder. Jacob s ladder reveals the

3 connection between heaven and earth, divinity and humanity, the uncreated and the created. It appears at every moment in our life, even life on the run. The ladder Jacob saw was not in a physical location. It was within him. It was not a vision but a dream. But the ladder isn t the point of this story. The important part of the story is that God shows up, and Jacob awakens to God s presence. And then God s voice. Remember, I am with you; I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised. Jacob named the place Beth-el which literally means House of God. The world is a hard place, full of stones. Yet it is a place of grace. When the sun has set and darkness takes over you can only stop and lie down. It is a point of surrender but not a place of giving up. We stop running from life, ourselves, and more importantly from God. The darkness teaches us that we are no longer in control of our own destiny. Now God can appear and speak. We see with new eyes and hear with new ears. The God Jacob never paid any attention to breaks into his dreams. And speaks: I ll stay with you always. When Jacob leaves his dream state, not only does he awaken from sleep; he wakes up to God. Refreshed with a new vision. Same desert wilderness, but something was different. And he exclaims: Surely God is in this place, and I didn t even know it! How awesome is this place! This is the gate of heaven. Through Jacob s dream, God reveals that the ladder of love, life-giving opportunities and connection are found deep within ourselves, a place so deep that it is seen in the gift of a dream. We call it Jacob s ladder but it is actually God s ladder placed in each one of us, in the hard stoney places, in the in between places in places we never would have expected. Surely the Lord in this place and I did not know it. Having woken up to God, Jacob knew he had to mark the spot. BBT says: When God encounters us in our ordinary lives, then we have a choice: we can keep on going and ignore what has happened, or we can set down an altar. We can mark even just within ourselves that moment, that spot, as holy. And that s what Jacob did he took the stone from under his head and tilted it heaven-ward. He anointed it with oil, marking the place as an altar and named it Beth-el. The House of God. The place where he experienced Divine Presence, the Sacred, the Holy that holds everything in place, by whatever name you call it. I love what Taylor writes towards the end of this chapter. If there is a switch to flip, I have never found it. As with Jacob, most of my visions of the divine have happened while I was busy doing something else. I did not make them happen. They happened to me the same way

4 a thunderstorm happens to me, or a bad cold. My only part is to decide how I will respond, since there is plenty I can do to make them go away I can set up a little altar, in the world or in my heart. I can stop what I am doing long enough to see where I am, who I am there with, and how awesome the place is. I can flag one more gate to heaven one more patch of ordinary earth with ladder marks on it where the traffic is heavy when I notice it and even when I do not. I can see it for once, instead of walking right past it, maybe even setting a stone or saying a blessing before I move on to wherever I am due next. Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world. But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the distinctions we make between the two. Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars. Have you ever thought about where you intentionally meet God? Can you remember the times or places where your spirit awakened to the presence of God, to have an encounter with the sacred or the holy perhaps more than any other time or place? What places in your life have been particularly holy for you? Where and what are your altars, and how do you acknowledge them? What parts of your life are lived on the run? What are you searching for? What are you running from? God is constantly breaking into our world, trying to get our attention. Let the sun set and do not be afraid. God s ladder is and always has been within you. No matter who you are, where you go, the circumstances you face, or where you run to the ladder of connection goes with you. It is a part of you. Wake up and see that the dream has come true. Surely the Lord is in this place and I now know it. I close with these lyrics of U2's song "Yahweh" that offers a perspective on how, by God s grace, we are able to transform ordinary things, people and places into something special: "Take these shoes / Click clacking down some dead end street Take these shoes / And make them fit. Take this shirt/ Polyester white trash made in nowhere Take this shirt/ And make it clean, clean Take this soul / Stranded in some skin and bones Take this soul/ And make it sing". Amen.

5 The Practice of Waking Up to God: Vision Text: Genesis 28: I woke up one day this week watching in horror and listening intently how political, religious and social activists across the United States and many parts of the world raised their voices in protest against Trump and his government, when heartrending news coverage of crying children -- some of whom were kept in cage-like detention centers were out in the open. I swear I could not believe what I ve heard and seen especially in this day and age. CNN reported that about 2,300 children were being separated from their families at the border since Trump rose to power. A ninth-grader in McAllen, Texas, was taken from his mother. He was riding in a car with friends last spring when the car was pulled over. The teenager, brought illegally to the country by his mother as a baby, was unable to show identification. Police called immigration officials, who arrested the boy and sent him to a shelter for unaccompanied migrant children. Without the protesters and pressure from political, religious and social leaders, I believe, Trump will not budge. Finally, he succumbed to the protesters demand and on Wednesday this week, he reversed his argument that he had no authority to stop separations of undocumented immigrant families at the border, therefore signing an executive order to keep parents and children together. And I said to myself. God is still alive and present. God speaks through the voices of those who will not keep silent when the powers of love and justice and compassion is trampled by the powers of hate, bigotry and indifference. Stories like these awaken me and think of where God is in the world and then bring me to a vision of hope. Many of us still believe that God is found only in so-called holy places and sacred things and godly people in the Bible, in the four corners of the church building, in the things we do and say when we come together as a faith community. We hang or post or even wear a cross or a fish symbol or a Christian slogan, whether it be a bumper sticker, a t-shirt, a song, a mug, a sign. But one of the things that Barbara Brown Taylor believes has been saving her is waking up to the reality that anywhere can be a place where God may be encountered that everywhere is the house of God. When we allow ourselves to experience God s presence only in those places that we have labeled as godly, then we greatly limit our experience of God.

6 Today we enter into the Practice of Waking up to God through the story of Jacob the episode after he tricked his father Isaac and twin brother Esau of his birth right. We know for a fact, according to the story, that these twins wrestled in their mother Rebekah s womb throughout her pregnancy, and Esau was born with Jacob hanging on to the heel of his foot. This rivalry between the brothers continued throughout their lives, and it was exacerbated by the fact that their parents each had a favorite son. As Father Isaac was nearing death he wanted to bestow his blessing upon his oldest son, Esau, as was the custom. Mother Rebekah conspired with Jacob and they tricked Isaac into bestowing that blessing upon Jacob. When Esau realized what had happened he was out for blood. When we catch up with Jacob this morning, he is on the run from his enraged and heartbroken brother Esau, who is out for revenge. Jacob was running away. Running away from home running away from the comforts of a good home running away from his roots and place of safety and sanctuary he was running because of the sins he committed against his father and his brother. Most of us, I suspect, know what it is like to live life on the run. Some of us are running from our past, trying to escape guilt, pain, failures, disappointments. Some are trying to get away from the losses and brokenness of life. Sometimes we just want to leave behind the parts of our lives or ourselves we dislike. Other times we are running toward the future. Life on the run is a search for something or someone new; a job, a relationship, an adventure. Maybe it is the search for answers. Who am I? What is this life all about? What s my purpose? Others, driven by a mid-life crisis, chase after meaning and youth. Most of us know what it is like to live life on the run due to schedules, chaos, and the busyness of life. Life is measured by accomplishments and to do lists. Demands and expectations chase us. Alone and afraid, Jacob flees to Haran. But he has to pass through the wilderness to get there. He isn t particularly looking for God. He certainly doesn t expect God to show up. And still as the Genesis storyteller declares, Jacob encountered God. Not in a face-to-face encounter, not in an earthquake or thunderstorm, not through music or another human being, but through a vision. In a dream. After running all day, Jacob was exhausted. He decides to go to sleep and finds a stone to use as a pillow. A vivid dream unfolds: a ladder stretching to heaven with the Angels of God ascending and descending. This is the story where the familiar repetitive hymn we learned in Sunday School comes from We are climbing Jacob s Ladder. Jacob s ladder reveals the

7 connection between heaven and earth, divinity and humanity, the uncreated and the created. It appears at every moment in our life, even life on the run. The ladder Jacob saw was not in a physical location. It was within him. It was not a vision but a dream. But the ladder isn t the point of this story. The important part of the story is that God shows up, and Jacob awakens to God s presence. And then God s voice. Remember, I am with you; I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised. Jacob named the place Beth-el which literally means House of God. The world is a hard place, full of stones. Yet it is a place of grace. When the sun has set and darkness takes over you can only stop and lie down. It is a point of surrender but not a place of giving up. We stop running from life, ourselves, and more importantly from God. The darkness teaches us that we are no longer in control of our own destiny. Now God can appear and speak. We see with new eyes and hear with new ears. The God Jacob never paid any attention to breaks into his dreams. And speaks: I ll stay with you always. When Jacob leaves his dream state, not only does he awaken from sleep; he wakes up to God. Refreshed with a new vision. Same desert wilderness, but something was different. And he exclaims: Surely God is in this place, and I didn t even know it! How awesome is this place! This is the gate of heaven. Through Jacob s dream, God reveals that the ladder of love, life-giving opportunities and connection are found deep within ourselves, a place so deep that it is seen in the gift of a dream. We call it Jacob s ladder but it is actually God s ladder placed in each one of us, in the hard stoney places, in the in between places in places we never would have expected. Surely the Lord in this place and I did not know it. Having woken up to God, Jacob knew he had to mark the spot. BBT says: When God encounters us in our ordinary lives, then we have a choice: we can keep on going and ignore what has happened, or we can set down an altar. We can mark even just within ourselves that moment, that spot, as holy. And that s what Jacob did he took the stone from under his head and tilted it heaven-ward. He anointed it with oil, marking the place as an altar and named it Beth-el. The House of God. The place where he experienced Divine Presence, the Sacred, the Holy that holds everything in place, by whatever name you call it. I love what Taylor writes towards the end of this chapter. If there is a switch to flip, I have never found it. As with Jacob, most of my visions of the divine have happened while I was busy doing something else. I did not make them happen. They happened to me the same way

8 a thunderstorm happens to me, or a bad cold. My only part is to decide how I will respond, since there is plenty I can do to make them go away I can set up a little altar, in the world or in my heart. I can stop what I am doing long enough to see where I am, who I am there with, and how awesome the place is. I can flag one more gate to heaven one more patch of ordinary earth with ladder marks on it where the traffic is heavy when I notice it and even when I do not. I can see it for once, instead of walking right past it, maybe even setting a stone or saying a blessing before I move on to wherever I am due next. Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world. But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the distinctions we make between the two. Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars. Have you ever thought about where you intentionally meet God? Can you remember the times or places where your spirit awakened to the presence of God, to have an encounter with the sacred or the holy perhaps more than any other time or place? What places in your life have been particularly holy for you? Where and what are your altars, and how do you acknowledge them? What parts of your life are lived on the run? What are you searching for? What are you running from? God is constantly breaking into our world, trying to get our attention. Let the sun set and do not be afraid. God s ladder is and always has been within you. No matter who you are, where you go, the circumstances you face, or where you run to the ladder of connection goes with you. It is a part of you. Wake up and see that the dream has come true. Surely the Lord is in this place and I now know it. I close with these lyrics of U2's song "Yahweh" that offers a perspective on how, by God s grace, we are able to transform ordinary things, people and places into something special: "Take these shoes / Click clacking down some dead end street Take these shoes / And make them fit. Take this shirt/ Polyester white trash made in nowhere Take this shirt/ And make it clean, clean Take this soul / Stranded in some skin and bones Take this soul/ And make it sing". Amen.